When you talk to Wade Forster, the first thing you realise is that nothing about him is manufactured. Everything from the rodeo injuries, the stories to the dirt under his fingernails is real. And so is the fact that he’ll answer a question with the kind of honesty that can only come from someone who’s not afraid to say it how he sees it.

His debut album Gooseneck Party has been out for a little while now, but the love hasn’t stopped rolling in from not just Australia, but the US, Mexico, Canada, and even as far as the UK. “It’s been great,” Forster starts. “A lot of people deep diving into an album that big is a good thing, you know, especially 22 songs on an album and people finding exactly what they want… it’s got a bit of everything for everyone, and I’m glad that everyone’s enjoying it.”

One particular track has lodged itself into listeners’ hearts, Air It Out his duet with Piper Butcher, which happens to be the only song Forster has cut that he didn’t write, but it’s one he felt so strongly about since the moment he first heard it. 

And the story of that moment is peak Forster: “I was hung over in a hotel called Hotel Turkey in Turkey, Texas, and I was on a co-headline tour with Shelby Stone and Big John from The Lowdown Drifters, and Shelby kicked it off with Air It Out. And I just remember this place just stopped talking, and were just listening. And I was listening to the words and listening to the guitar, and I was like, this song was just cutting through me like a knife through butter.”

There’s a particular lyric that hit him square in the chest: 

“If I wanted to see you naked, 

I could just call you and you'd fake it, 

it'd leave me banging my head against the wall,

wishing I would go blind.” 

Forster pauses when he says it, even now. “I remember just going, Jesus, this song is just the perfect song.”

That discovery kicked off a chain of events that sounds like fate. He went straight from Texas to Tamworth, staying with Butcher and her family. When she started singing it, he knew instantly: “Maybe you and me should do this song.” He laughs softly “Piper’s been a little sister to me… she’s always looked out for me since the minute I got into this music thing” before adding “She’s in my opinion the most underrated country singer in Australia.” And the pride is real when he describes performing it in Memphis with Butcher and one of the songwriters, Travis Roberts, was in the room. “I remember getting told that he was teary at the back… he was very, very proud. And it makes me proud that he enjoyed our version of it.”

The song’s quiet power has followed him home, too. “People were stopping in their tracks,” he says of early shows. “They’re like, who’s this girl? And then the minute she starts singing, the crowd just loses it.” Even Treaty Oak Revival’s frontman recognised it instantly. “He’s like, ‘Hell, I love that Jordan Nix cover.’”

But asked what his favourite song on the album that he wrote himself, Forster goes straight to We All Forget. That song, too, comes from a lived moment, this time from his rodeo days. He tells the story of a man he travelled with on and off for years, who eventually opened up to him about why he never dated. The answer was palpable “‘My high school sweetheart, she died in her sleep when I was young, and I don’t need love anymore. I found love.’” The memory still sits heavy on him. “I remember that really, really hit me in my chest, and I never really got over it… a lot of people think it’s a love song, but it’s actually a song of how love, unfortunately, has to end one day.”

That blend of grit and heart threads through the whole album. Forster puts it simply: “I’ve lived quite a life… as if I was an old fella at a pub telling young fellas some yarns.” And he really has, ringer, farrier, fridge mechanic, rodeo rider, now full time touring musician. “I don’t like the idea of writing a story I can’t relate to,” he says. “You can’t fake a good story… you gotta live them things.”

His perspective on songwriting is refreshingly no-bullshit. “I write songs nearly every day… I wrote one yesterday,” he says casually. Even pneumonia couldn’t stop him. “I’ve been in hospital twice this week with pneumonia… and I wrote about that and how, if you like something, you’ll persevere.” He’s already thinking far ahead. “There’s definitely gonna be music every year for the next 50 years… until they throw dirt on top of me.” he says with a laugh.

People often ask him about how he’s able to write such brutally raw and honest songs. His answer? Straightforward and simple. “Go out in the bush and find out about it. Go fucking cut your teeth. Go work cattle. Go be a bartender at a bush pub. You know, that's how you fucking make a good story. You hear more good stories at a bush pub than you ever will in a songwriting camp.”

And it’s that authenticity that fuels his live shows too. His most recent Australian tour sold out everywhere. But his standout memory wasn’t from a theatre; it was from the Deni Ute Muster. “I did not expect what I walked out to… about 15,000 people,” he says. “As a dude that was first on the bill, I didn’t expect much, and then the whole place was packed. It was something I’d never thought I’d see.”

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Yet despite all that success, he’s not chasing validation. Forster sees through industry politics, but never through the people who show up for him. When awards come up, he doesn’t miss a beat. “Awards mean nothing,” he says. “You could win 100 of fucking things and you could still be mediocre… you could win zero and be one of the best of all time.” The only awards he really warms to are the fan voted ones: “That’s why I like the Countrytown Awards… you give the fans the say.”

Tamworth Country Music Festival is up next and it’s shaping up to be enormous for him, his own headline show at the Longyard, pop up appearances, charity gigs, Academy mentoring, even a project with Ronald McDonald House. “I hate seeing sick kids,” Forest admits, “so I finally got the footing and the cash to be able to do a really good thing for Ronald McDonald House.”

And if you spot a phone on stage during one of his sets this weekend, there’s a reason. His sister is competing at the Australian National Finals Rodeo. “If anyone sees my phone on stage, I’m live-streaming watching my sister try and win her first all-round title.”

That’s Wade Forster in one sentence: a cowboy with a songwriter’s heart, who’ll jump from a rodeo arena to a stage and most importantly someone who still teases his sister about buckles. “I put the Countrytown Award next to my sister’s Australia buckle… I go, yeah, well, I won a Countrytown award and you can’t win one of these because you can’t sing” he laughs.

Above all, he’s someone who doesn’t mince words: “Slapping on a cowboy hat… does not make you country. You can’t fake country.”